


To Use the Common Name

by AltUniverseWash



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Budding Love, Death of a loved one, F/F, Feelings, Flowers, Grief, Healing, Kissing, Moving On, Romance, Sadstuck, Sweet, but it ends on a positive note, dealing with grief, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:34:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23814691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AltUniverseWash/pseuds/AltUniverseWash
Summary: In an alternate timeline where the price paid to attain Earth-C was a dear one, Kanaya and Jade walk together in the memorial gardens. Opening up about her own loss, Kanaya finally decides to confront something she's been avoiding for ten years - the possibility of being happy again.
Relationships: Jade Harley/Kanaya Maryam
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21
Collections: Ladystuck Art/Fic Exchange 2020





	To Use the Common Name

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TT_Squid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TT_Squid/gifts).



> This fic is a gift for TT_Squid (tt-squid.tumblr.com) as part of the LadyStuck 2020 fic exchange!
> 
> Content warning: This story deals with grief and the loss of loved ones. If this is a trigger for you, please read with caution.

“ _ Campanula rotundifolia _ .” Jade reached down to touch the soft petals of the flower, smiling slightly.

Kanaya shook her head. “I am sorry, but I do not always remember the names.”

“Bluebell,” Jade said softly. Her eyes were glistening. “June’s favorite flower. Sorry – old habit to use the Latin…” She trailed off. Kanaya walked closer, putting her hand on Jade’s shoulder.

“We do not have to be here, you know.” She said quietly, carefully studying Jade’s face. A look of relief crossed briefly, then steely determination.

“No,” Jade said. “I promised I’d visit the garden at least once a month. I promised I wouldn’t forget about them…” she trailed off again, looking perilously close to crying. Kanaya put her hand behind Jade’s back and pressed softly, urging her to keep walking down the flagstone path.

The garden had been Jade’s idea. Kanaya realized that it was her way of coping with the situation they found themselves in after coming to Earth-C. A small gesture, maybe, but one that brought her immense comfort in the act of remembrance.

That was, after all, the point of a memorial garden.

They had won the game – but it had come at a dear price. Of their original number, less than half had survived to make their way to the paradise they had built for themselves and their descendants. In the end, they had lost so many – the ones who had been sacrificed to make a home for the rest.

Campanula rotundifolia, the Bluebell, for June… 

Taraxacum officinale, the Common Dandelion, for Karkat...

Tagetes, the Marigold, for Aradia...

Cleomes, Spider-flowers, for Vriska...

Hyacinthus, the Hyacinth, for Jane...

“ _ Rosa floribunda _ ,” Jade twitched her nose and adjusted her glasses by pushing up the bridge.

Kanaya felt something drop inside of her – her stomach knotted because she already knew what Jade was going to say next. She wanted to call out to Jade to stop – to not say another word. Because hearing it made it  _ real _ and even after all these years, Kanaya still wasn’t ready for this to be  _ real _ ...

“Queen of the Night – a species of...” Jade seemed to realize what she was saying and her voice died in her throat, her face a sudden mask of panic.

Rosa floribunda, the Queen of the Night… for Rose...

Kanaya didn’t want to cry in front of Jade – she sniffled and reached up to wipe her eyes. Turning away from the rose, she stared into the garden, down the winding path that moved through pleasantly scented hedges and fragrant beds of flowers.

It’s been ten years now… why does it still feel like this?

An ache that still prodded at her in the night – a pain that still worked its way into her stomach, but only some of the time.

She glanced over at Jade.

A guilt that she felt, sometimes. Because it was a betrayal to feel the way she did, she thought.

“If it is not too much trouble, perhaps we could sit in the hedges,” Kanaya said, her voice trembling ever-so-slightly as she spoke. Jade looked closely at her, then nodded.

“Okay, yeah! Let’s do that!” She sounded too cheery – she could see that something was wrong but didn’t want to call attention to it. Together, Jade and Kanaya walked toward the hedge garden that sat across a grassy stretch off the main path.

It was secluded, and on that bright morning it was empty. It was typically empty – few people bothered to walk off the main path and away from the main attraction that was the flower gardens. The tall hedges of the side garden had been specifically planted to shadow the benches and provide a cool spot for weary visitors to sit and rest.

Kanaya hurried to one of the far benches – the one most hidden by the overhanging hedges – and sat down. She was shaking, her hands trembling and her breathing uneven. She struggled to control it – to not let Jade see how she was feeling.

There was an almost imperceptible change in the air as Jade sat down next to her, and she felt the woman lean against her shoulder slightly. Together, they sat an drew in the quiet, neither woman saying a word.

* * *

“Buxus sempervirens,” she heard Jade’s voice softly in her ear. Kanaya looked up.

“What’s that?”

“The European boxwood – the tree we’re sitting under. Really tall ones, designed to provide shade.”

Kanaya tried to smile, but it died on her lips before it was more than a slight smirk. She stared ahead, looking at the greenery.

“I do like it here,” she said – as much to herself as to Jade. “It is calm and peaceful. I enjoy the hedgerows in particular – they remind me of some of the few good parts of home.”

She felt Jade shift and open her arms. “Do you mind?”

Kanaya shook her head, said “I do not mind,” and felt Jade’s long arms circle her shoulders. The smile did better this time – managing to at least turn up the corners of Kanaya’s mouth in a way that would best be described as  _ sad, but trying her best _ .

“You don’t like coming here,” Jade said, her voice low. “I know you don’t. Every time I ask you, you tense up.”

“It is not that, it is just that…” Kanaya trailed off.

Just that it reminds you of her, every single time.

“You’re a bad liar, Kanaya,” Jade said, squeezing Kanaya’s shoulders. Kanaya shook her head.

“ _ It is complicated _ , to use a phrase that humans are so fond of saying.” She looked down at the ground. “I am reminded that I possess many conflicting feelings when I come to this place.”

“Do you want me to give you some space?” Jade asked, her arms starting to loosen.

“No,” Kanaya said – she reached up and grabbed Jade’s arms, pulling the embrace tighter around her. “I think that space is the last thing that I am in need of right now.”

Silence. The thick hedges all around them muted the noise coming in from outside – to the point where even the birdsong was but a distant hum in the background. That silence seemed to have it’s own sound, and Kanaya realized it was the hum of the blood in her own ears and the whisper of her own breath… and the whisper of Jade’s breath.

Kanaya closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Jade?”

She heard Jade murmur a response – a  _ hmm _ that vibrated through the hug and sent a shiver down Kanaya’s back.

“What would the – ah – what would the scientific name be for what we are?”

“I don’t get it,” Jade responded. “You mean, like, the Alternian species?”

Kanaya laughed a little. “No… I am sorry, I was trying to lighten the mood a little. I have many feelings right now and I am unsure of how to parse them so I am resorting to a poor attempt at making a joke.”

“Oh, yeah.  _ That _ I definitely get!” Jade squeezed her a little bit and Kanaya found that she was actually smiling, if only a little.

Kanaya wasn’t lying about enjoying it in the gardens. The cool shade of the side gardens and the warm sunlight of the main paths each held their own separate appeal. The flowers were beautiful, and the vast array of colors never ceased to amaze her. This part of Earth-C was perpetually temperate, so the range of what could be grown outdoors was staggering.

But Jade wasn’t wrong that she didn’t like coming here either. It wasn’t anything about gardens, of course.

Of course it reminds me of her.

Of Rose.

These were, after all, the  _ memorial gardens _ – a name that carried so much weight and meaning behind it that sometimes Kanaya felt like the very sound of it was pressing on her. It carried all the meaning of the friends they had lost to get to Earth-C – all of their hopes and dreams and memories.

It had gone so wrong, in the end. Even after winding back the clock, June had been unable to save everyone – not even herself.

Kanaya felt the tears in her eyes. She wondered if Jade felt the same way coming here. After all, June had been her sister – and maybe that didn’t mean the same thing to an Alternian, but Kanaya understood kinship all the same. She understood pain and loss and heartbreak.

“You miss June?”

Jade let out a deep, heavy sigh that came from her chest – Kanaya  _ felt _ it as much as heard it.

“Of course I miss her. Every goddamn day. The thing that gets me the most…” she trailed off and Kanaya heard her swallow heavily. “I knew her as a friend for so long, and then I just got to start knowing her as a  _ sister _ and then…” she trailed off again. Kanaya could hear the short sobs that Jade was trying so desperately to conceal.

“Why do you come here, then?” Kanaya asked. “If it causes you pain, why do it?”

Jade sniffled and leaned against her shoulder. “Because I don’t want to forget about her. Because I don’t want to forget about any of them. I mean, I didn’t know all of them as well as I would’ve liked but June was my sister and Rose was my friend too – we knew each other for so long and– oh my god Kanaya I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

“It’s fine,” Kanaya interrupted. Her tone suggested otherwise – a well of pain that sprang up under the surface of her words. “It has been ten years. Surely that is long enough to mourn the woman that you love.”

It hurt to say it. And the  _ guilt _ she felt under the pain made it even worse.

“It is complicated,” Kanaya said again. “I would prefer not to talk about it at this precise moment in time. I would rather just sit – with you, if you do not mind.”

The fact that Jade didn’t move an inch when Kanaya said this was a strong indication that she did not, in fact, mind.

* * *

“Jade… you never did answer my question,” Kanaya said after they had been sitting for a while longer in the shade. “What would you call what we are?”

She heard Jade swallow. “Uh…” She sounded nervous.

Kanaya sighed. “Yes. I will admit I have some complex emotions surrounding the situation as well.”

“We’re friends…” Jade said, leaving the sentence hanging in a way that suggested this was far from the last word she had on the matter.

“I would hope,” Kanaya tried to keep her voice light, but it was hard not to betray the way she was feeling. “I have a small confession to make to you, and I hope in advance that you will not find it in bad taste, given the circumstances.”

“Kanaya, I’m not a baby – I’ll be fine!”

Perhaps, but it remains to be seen if I will be as well.

“Indeed,” Kanaya said, the corner of her mouth quirking up a little. “You are in fact not a human infant.” She lapsed into silence again, reluctant and unsure of how to continue.

“And?” Jade’s voice betrayed a slightly waiver – a small hint of insecurity.

“Well,” Kanaya began, “we have been friends for quite some time. And we have begun to go on the things that humans might call  _ dates _ . Or, to put it in Alternians terms – we have been  _ pale red _ for a while now. And…” Kanaya’s voice stuttered off into silence.

The next part seemed so far away, intellectually – like such a huge leap that if she were to attempt it, Kanaya would simply fall and dash herself against the emotional rocks that lay below. She wasn’t even sure where to start.

“You can just… say what you’re feeling, you know.” Jade’s voice was calm and soft – affectionate. “I promise I won’t get mad at you.”

It wasn’t Jade getting  _ mad  _ at her that worried her. If anything, Kanaya was afraid of the opposite – that Jade would agree with what she was about to say and then she would have to face the second part of the problem – have to figure out what the scientific name for “paralyzing guilt” was.

Kanaya let out the breath she just then realized she had been holding. “Jade… I believe I am becoming flushed extremely red for you.” She wasn’t sure how the Alternian terminology would translate, but she hoped it was clear enough.

Jade didn’t say anything, but she also made no move to stop holding Kanaya. But still – she wasn’t saying anything at all.

“Jade? I believe I have just made a love confession to you.”

Jade still didn’t say anything, but Kanaya felt her lean in, resting her head on Kanaya’s shoulder. It sounded like she was crying, faintly.

“Jade?”

“Oh god –” Jade was definitely crying.

“Jade? What is wrong?”

“I thought –” She sniffled heavily. “I thought you didn’t  _ like _ me like that. Like I was being super obvious about having the biggest fucking crush on you and you just didn’t feel that way. And I was okay with that because I really started falling in love but…”

“Jade – it is complicated.”

She felt Jade freeze up against her shoulder – all of her muscles tensed at once.

“No,” Kanaya said, “please don’t worry. It is not your fault – in fact it has nothing to do with you at all. The reason I was hesitant to say anything earlier –”

You have to say it. You have to use the common name, so that everyone understands what you mean.

“–is that I felt guilty about my feelings for you.”

“Because of Rose,” Jade said, and Kanaya could tell from her tone that she wasn’t angry or upset. Rather, she understood what Kanaya was feeling in a way that felt almost uncomfortably intimate.

“I’ve never lost someone I felt like that about,” Jade said. “But I guess I kind of understand. When June died, I felt like I was somehow being a bad person by enjoying things. Even if I knew it was a stupid thing to think, I kept thinking it anyway.”

“How did you stop thinking like that?” Kanaya asked. “I feel very much that this is an irrational thing to feel but cannot actually stop.”

There was a shrug against her and it occurred to Kanaya that Jade had yet to stop holding her.

“I don’t know. I kept asking myself what June would want… then I started wondering what I wanted. And then–” she paused, as if gathering her thoughts. “Then I thought about what June would’ve wanted again, and I guess I figured that she wouldn’t want me to be making myself unhappy all the time. So I had a talk with her – I mean, probably not really – but with this garden I picked out the flower she loved and I talked to her. And maybe it was just how I saw June in my head, but it made me feel better.”

“Oh,” Kanaya said. She remembered how invested Jade had been in creating the garden – it was one of the things that had really drawn Kanaya and Jade together in the first place. It had always felt like there was something deeply meaningful to Jade about the garden specifically. It made sense – it was her way of communing with her lost sister. Her way of grieving.

“Jade, I believe there is something I must do,” Kanaya said. “If we could perhaps return to the  _ Rosa floribunda _ for a minute.” She didn’t know why she’d used the Latin name for the rose – it felt appropriate somehow.

* * *

Jade, at Kanaya’s request, stood back from the bushes where the Queen of the Night roses bloomed – far enough that even her keen ears couldn’t hear what Kanaya said. This was something Kanaya wanted privacy for – maybe a little bit because she felt somewhat silly doing it, and maybe a little bit because she  _ didn’t _ .

Kanaya walked up to the rose bushes and picked a single bloom – the rose was a brilliant purple that seemed like an almost too-perfect match for the woman it was memorializing. Kanaya looked down at the rose and cleared her throat.

This is definitely what I am going to do. I am absolutely going to confront these feelings and not be reduced to a crying wiggler when I do it.

“So…” Kanaya wasn’t sure how to start.

“Rose,” she began again, “I really miss you. Every single day I feel like there is a piece of me that died along with you. I know that perhaps it is not healthy to still feel this way after so long – but also I feel that it would be unhealthy for me to simply forget about you. We did not have long enough together –”

Kanaya stopped because her throat was tight and she was having trouble forming the words.

Robbed of an eternity promised. That was how she felt. She and Rose both ascended to god tier, given the gift of a nearly-immortal existence. Maybe she’d been incredibly selfish about it – or incredibly naive – but Kanaya had dared to hope for a while that they were going to come out of the game together. They were going to make their home on Earth-C and get married, because that seemed like a charming human custom.

“Oh, Rose,” Kanaya said. “I miss you so terribly. I know it has been a long time, but I feel that you will always have a place in my heart.”

She paused. This shouldn’t be as hard as it was – because, ultimately, she was talking to a literal flower. Kanaya sighed.

“I feel strongly that if you were here to give me one last piece of advice, you would perhaps tell me to stop being so blatantly obvious and just go kiss Jade Harley already. I knew you long enough to know how you would feel – in truth I am not sure why I hold onto this sense of obligation to something that I feel you would intensely dislike.”

Kanaya brought the rose to her face, smelling the sweetly perfumed blossom. Jade had told her once that the flowers were often bred purely for their aesthetics, losing all smell in the process. She appreciated the decision to use one that still smelled pleasant – she felt like it was a choice Rose would’ve appreciated.

Jade is a choice Rose would’ve appreciated too.

Kanaya began blushing furious and she wasn’t even sure  _ why _ she was having that kind of a thought. Rose would’ve…

Probably would’ve…

Kanaya closed her eyes, thought back to the last thing she and Rose had talked about. It felt like such a vast gulf of memory now – a decade of in-between that took real effort to cross.

They’d spoken an hour before the final battle – the one where so many had given up their lives in a fashion deemed suitably heroic to not be granted the mercy of returning to life. After breakfast, they had talked and then – well, there hadn’t been much time for talking later that day.

Rose had seemed so odd that day. So unlike her usual self. She told Kanaya how much she loved her. She told Kanaya that, no matter what happened that day, she needed to press onward. To keep fighting. To do whatever needed to be done and…

And to keep living after.

“You knew this would happen…” Kanaya felt a fresh, sweltering burn behind her eyes. In hindsight, it should’ve been so obvious. The Seer of Light had known what was going to happen before she had even started. She had seen all of the probabilistic outcomes boiling away, simplifying, and ultimately coalescing into the one singular line that their timeline was hurtling toward.

Rose LaLonde had gone knowingly to her death. When she told Kanaya to keep on when all was said and done, she already knew what that implied. Kanaya was promised an eternity – Rose was promised nothing at all.

Kanaya brushed the tears from her cheeks and brought the rose up, letting the gentle fragrance dance on her nose.

“I believe I have fallen in love with Jade Harley,” Kanaya murmured to herself – to the rose – to Rose.

And a flower could give no answer – could not be the proxy for the long-dead woman that a piece of Kanaya’s heart would always love. But even still, she knew that Rose had probably seen this too. Who knew how long the path had stretched in her mind’s eye when Rose told her to keep living. Somehow, Kanaya felt like she had known a great many things she had chosen to keep to herself, lest the mystery of the future be spoiled or the destined outcomes be forever shifted in the act of knowing.

Kanaya smiled to herself and plucked a petal from the rose.

“I believe I am finally ready to heed your advice, darling.” The rose remained silent on this particular fact as well, but it was only a silly flower and Rose LaLonde had already had her final say on the matter.

“Thank you.” The last words hung in the air with the gentle smells that were carried on the breeze, and Kanaya felt herself genuinely smiling for the first time in ten years.

Tucking the flower into her hair, she walked back over to where Jade was waiting for her.

* * *

On the other side of the gardens, there was a greenhouse. At this time in the afternoon, the sunlight hit the glass of the greenhouse at just the right angle and filled the entire building with brilliant, golden light. Jade and Kanaya walked inside and sat down on a bench in one of the far rooms. It was late enough in the day that most of the visitors to the memorial gardens had gone home – they were alone in the greenhouse.

The room they’d chosen had been dedicated to a number of tropical plants that had been native to the old Earth. Large leafy trees loomed up to the top of the high glass ceiling, and a variety of flowering vines swept from one end of the space to the other. In the center of it all, Jade and Kanaya sat together.

“Are you okay?” Jade asked. She was sitting close to Kanaya, but not quite touching. Kanaya supposed this was a gesture of respect towards her boundaries, but given the circumstances she actually wished Jade were a bit closer.

Kanaya gathered herself up, breathing in and out slowly. When she felt ready, she began to speak.

“ _ Freesia… _ the flower whose common name is the same as the Latin. Associated with trust and unconditional love. When used at a funeral–” Kanaya paused. “It can be used to honor a partner who has died.”

She looked at Jade’s face, trying to read her emotions. Jade was looking at her intently – she seemed to be wondering where this was going. Kanaya sighed, deeply.

“I am sorry, that sounded more profound in my head when I rehearsed it on the way over.” She smiled. “What I am trying very awkwardly to say is that I have given this matter a lot of thought. I had resisted moving on with my life out of a sense of duty to Rose. Because I felt that choosing to love someone else was doing her a disservice. But she would never ask me to do something so incredibly…” Kanaya stopped and thought.

“So incredibly silly!” She continued. “Rose was many things, but  _ flighty _ was absolutely not one of them!”

“I’m sorry, Kanaya – what are you saying exactly?” Jade asked, her eyebrows knit.

Yes, Kanaya, you are quite bad with words on this fine day.

“I am saying that I was holding onto a sense of guilt that Rose herself would have told me, in no uncertain terms, to shove directly up my posterior.” Kanaya giggled at her joke – she saw Jade’s eyes soften as she smiled.

“I am saying,” Kanaya continued, “that I believe I have fallen in love with you.”

Jade looked down. “I don’t think that was as hard to see as maybe you thought it was.”

Kanaya felt herself blushing furiously. “Ah– yes, perhaps you are correct about that. In any case, I would like to formally state that I would very much like to pick my life back up. Specifically, I would like to… ah…”

“Yes, I’ll be your matesprit or whatever you want to call it. Your girlfriend.”

Kanaya smiled at the ground, looking away. “Ah, yes… to use the common name.”

“I don’t feel like the scientific terminology is quite appropriate here anyway.” Jade reached up and tucked a stray hair behind Kanaya’s ear, letting her hand linger and brush softly over Kanaya’s cheek.

Kanaya took Jade’s hand and turned toward it, kissing her on the tender spot inside her wrist. She tasted the light salt taste of sweat and something underneath that which would absolutely warrant further exploration. Kanaya found herself blushing again.

“Tulip…” Jade whispered. “The common name. A flower associated with spring… and love.” Jade was turning a  _ very _ deep shade of red.

A pause, heavy with implication and unsaid meaning. Jade turning redder and redder. Kanaya looking at her, still holding her hand.

Jade whispered the next part. “I’m saying I’m in love with you, by the way.”

Kanaya laughed – the sound was almost foreign to her own ears these days, and it struck her how much she’d missed hearing it.

“I had gathered as much from your floral analogy. It was very sweet.”

Jade murmured something that could’ve been “thank you” for all Kanaya knew, but it didn’t even matter exactly. The point was the same.

_ Catharsis. _

The process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.

Kanaya leaned over and kissed Jade on the cheek, lingering perhaps a bit longer than was strictly necessary to convey her meaning.

“I love you,” Kanaya whispered – just loud enough.

She rested her head on Jade’s shoulder, tucked up against her neck, and closed her eyes. And there in the greenhouse – with the massive tropical leaves towering over and the golden sunlight scattering through the glass – Kanaya sat and basked in the feelings of warmth that were washing over her.

Kanaya Maryam had written the last line in a long and painful chapter of her life that day – a chapter whose last sentence had been penned in ink that smelled of  _ Rosa floribunda _ .

As Kanaya sat on the bench, leaned up close to Jade Harley, the sounds of the world gradually grew muted and dim. She became more and more aware of her own breathing, and that of the woman next to her.

And Kanaya thought something she hadn’t for the last ten years of her life.

Tomorrow will be better.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Reader, thank you once again for reading! If you enjoyed this, please leave kudos or a comment if you're inclined. I will respond to most comments!
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at @AltUniverseWash for more, including fan fic live reading streams on Sunday evenings!
> 
> Author's notes: This fic was built around a simple Ladystuck prompt about Jade and Kanaya talking about flowers and stuff - I had originally intended it to be a simple piece based around a memory from my childhood where my mom would always use the scientific names for plants and have to try to remember the common names. It was originally going to be a kind of light rom-fluff piece but while I was considering how to set up Jade and Kanaya's relationship, things ended up getting away from me. The end result was a bit heavier than I wanted, but I'm happy with the direction the story took.


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